It is the Best of Times for Reading Ebooks

[leebase]

It is the best of times....

Looking back over ten years of participating on this forum, I think it is the best of times for reading ebooks. IMHO.

Turns out - eInk doesn't matter. All the hoopla over whether it's scientifically proven that {insert any of the vaious theories here}, it turned not to matter one tiny little bit whether eInk or phones/tablets is better for your eyes. If you like and prefer eInk, there are devices aplenty to choose from. Less than before, but that's for a different post. If you want to read on phones or tablets....there are many to choose from. Do you. Decent tablets and eInk devices are less than $100. Phone screens grew large as well. Read ebooks, it's a great time.

Apparently - the publishing world did not come to an end over Agency pricing. If you owned a book store, brick and morter or online, you might have been greatly affected. But for those who read ebooks....they still exist and still continue to be published. If you hate the Big 5 with a passion, there are more indie authors than ever before. If you hate Amazon, there is Kobo and Nook and Apple. If you hate Apple, there is everybody else. If you "never will spend more than $x for an ebook", turns out nobody comes to your house and takes money out of your wallet to buy one anyway. Nothing has changed. You buy a book or you don't buy a book depending on it's price and your desires and ability.

DRM is as DRM does. Nothing has changed in 10 years. If you want to liberate your ebooks from DRM you mostly can. [....] Those who buy way in advance of reading or like to reread....still need to beware .

People still read, books are still being written. Facebook, twitter, snapchat, instagram, chord cutters, Netflix, Prime Video and the "always and forever terrible state of our education system" -- and people still read. Some people. The same percentage of "some people" that ever read.

It is the best of times for reading ebooks.

[Lparsons21]

I agree! Plenty of ebooks out there with all sorts of pricing. I buy some but more and more use a subscription service like scribd or Kindle Unlimited. I subscribe to both and find more than enough of all genres I’m interested in to read.

I mostly read on an iOS tablet and my eyes are doing fine with that and I’m 75. I would do more with e-ink devices if it wasn’t for the sluggishness of all of them I’ve ever used. It is just irritating enough to make me not use them.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by leebase

If you "never will spend more than $x for an ebook", turns out nobody comes to your house and takes money out of your wallet to buy one anyway.

That doesn't happen to you? The Big 5 Book Goons must not have hit your area yet.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

That doesn't happen to you? The Big 5 Book Goons must not have hit your area yet.

I have a Corgi/Chihuahua mix that guards my door.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by leebase

Apparently - the publishing world did not come to an end over Agency pricing.

It didn't come to an end, but I've discovered Overdrive because of it and now I'm much more likely to borrow a book then buy it.

[GeoffR]

Ereading for me is as good as it has ever been. I am still on my first ereader I bought over six years ago, it was great then and it is still great.

I think the biggest potential for improvement is not in the hardware but in the quality of the ebooks themselves, even the latest releases still contain basic formatting mistakes. Some publishers are slowly improving though.

The only thing I can see that would significantly reduce my enjoyment of ereading would be if I could not remove DRM, as I would no longer be able to fix the publishers' mistakes myself.

[bookaho!ic]

I was a reluctant convert until i realised i can carry my whole library (the internal librarian in me was thrilled)

am now on my fourth ereader
1st - Sony PR5 (i think) sold once upgraded
2nd - Kobo touch got fed up after a year of using a clip on light
3rd - kobo aura loved it
current kobo h20 2nd edition as even though i loved ereader number 3 i wanted a less harsh light in bed

i borrow books from library, buy books from kobo when at 99p and will still never read all i own long live the ereader and ebooks

[leebase]

My iphoneX is so much nicer than my old iPhone 3G that I first used to read ebooks. The Walmart Onn for $64 is a terrific and inexpensive tablet as are the Kindle Fires. My iPad Mini is my new favorite device. Such a nice size and weight for reading. Great for web surfing and participating on forums...typing this message on it right now.

Marvin finally got me to where I don’t miss Stanza. FBReader has the features I most demand and lets me sync between iOS and Android.

I have my many favorite authors who I pay retail for. And I'm buying complete box sets from new-to-me authors for $1.

It’s a great time for being an ebook reader

[binaryhermit]

I'd like to add there's a glut of fairly easily available stuff that wouldn't be out there if the big gatekeepers ruled the world.


Though a lot of it's of poor quality.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

My iphoneX is so much nicer than my old iPhone 3G that I first used to read ebooks. The Walmart Onn for $64 is a terrific and inexpensive tablet as are the Kindle Fires. My iPad Mini is my new favorite device. Such a nice size and weight for reading. Great for web surfing and participating on forums...typing this message on it right now.

Marvin finally got me to where I don’t miss Stanza. FBReader has the features I most demand and lets me sync between iOS and Android.

I have my many favorite authors who I pay retail for. And I'm buying complete box sets from new-to-me authors for $1.

It’s a great time for being an ebook reader

I do agree with much of this. I started reading ebooks on a palm pilot, something that I doubt I would be able to read without reading glasses these days. The vast majority of the ebooks at that time was either PD books or scanned books downloaded from news groups (what some call pirated) since there were few ebook stores.

Now I can read quite well on my iPhone 8 plus but mostly read on either a big iPad Pro or iPad mini. If I'm going to be in sunlight or backpacking I use a Kobo eInk device and if I forget everything else, I have a Kindle sitting in my car. Talk about variety! There are few books that aren't available, most of those being somewhat obscure or orphaned books written 20+ years ago. Yea, it sure would be nice if every book ever written was available, just like they imagined back when the internet was starting to take off but that's life as they say.

Libraries now have ebooks and if subscriptions are your thing, then you can get massive amounts of books via various subscription services.

Are there potential problems? Sure. But life is awful sweet right now if you are really into reading ebooks.

[leebase]

I believe the defining characteristic as to whether now feels like a great time or a bad time for ebooks/ereading.....is if you are focused on actually what you can read. If one is speaking of READING.....it's a great time.

[leebase]

Under "The best of times"....I really enjoyed that I could send my mom ebooks (she recently passed). I could buy her a kindle book...I could load a book on FBReader's network, and they would appear on her kindle and iPad.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

Under "The best of times"....I really enjoyed that I could send my mom ebooks (she recently passed). I could buy her a kindle book...I could load a book on FBReader's network, and they would appear on her kindle and iPad.

Yep, I did the same for my mother. She would tell me what books she wanted and the next time she opened her kindle (and later the kindle app on her iPad) there it was.

[cfrizz]

Now is a terrific time for reading I have multiple devices to read on and have all of my books on all of them, so I'm never without something to read or a device to read on!

[binaryhermit]

I can put (by my count) 4566 books in my pocket with room for thousands more. Beat that, 15 years ago.